Customer Relationship Management

Jul 22, 2015

Legal Experts Need to be Front and Center in Negotiating Software Contracts

I had the opportunity to engage in a negotiation seminar with a large insurance company last week, and had the team work on a software contract role play.  In the… 

May 10, 2015

Spectra Energy Supplier Forum: Driving Collaborative Project Management

I had the pleasure and honor of attending the 2nd annual Supplier Forum, hosted by Union Gas & Spectra Energy in Hamilton, Ontario at the end of April.  The meeting… 

Apr 22, 2015

EMC runs a lean operation: Playing hockey with doughnut holes

I had the opportunity to visit EMC’s manufacturing facility in Apex, NC this afternoon.  Brent Taylor, who I met the week before at Procurement Leader’s, took me on a tour… 

Nov 20, 2014

Apple's Sapphire Supplier: A Textbook Example of Supplier Relationships Gone Bad

Today’s breaking Wall Street Journal article provides a great case study on the impacts of not properly managing contractual supplier relationships. First consider the type of supply arrangement this represented.… 

Oct 24, 2014

Global Luxury Management "Lifestyle" brands require push supply chain design customization

More and more global luxury brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and others are promoting themselves as Lifestyle brands, spanning many products including fragrance, home collections, apparel, paint, wallpaper, foods, and… 

Oct 13, 2014

Collaborative Approaches to Design-Build Contracts in Oil and Gas Construction

Many companies are still proclaiming that they have  “collaborative relationships”, but nowhere is this less the case then in the construction industry in oil and gas. In this environment, traditional Design-Build… 

Apr 25, 2014

Supplier Relationship Management is About PEOPLE (Sorry it's not about Technology)

We had some great insights from two speakers on our final day of the SCRC Meeting.  Our first speaker was Lowell Hoffman, who spoke about some of the lessons learned… 

Mar 22, 2014

"Supplier-Led Innovation" – Theme for Upcoming SCRC Meeting April 23-24, 2014

Our SCRC team sent out invitations to our next SCRC meeting on April 23 and 24, which will focus on a theme that is often discussed in the press, but… 

Jan 28, 2014

So what exactly is Supplier Relationship Management, anyway?

A lot of terminology is being thrown in pubic forums, using terms such as collaboration, partnering, relationship management, and other themes.  These terms are, in my opinion, being over-used, without… 

Sep 11, 2013

Auditing, visibility and collaboration: The keys to a socially responsible supply chain

In the September issue of the Supply Chain Management Review, Andreas Wieland from Berlin Technical University and I have published a thoughtpiece on the application of social responsible criteria to…